On Island Time, Part Four

In February 2017, we traveled from Denver to Saint Thomas for a much needed and well deserved vacation.  Facebook has been thoroughly saturated with photos chronicling the beauty, joy, and fun we had.   This is an alternate look at our time on the island- the smelly, the wet, the creepy, the funny, the bizarre, broken into several parts.

Days 0.5 and 1 can be found here, Days 2 and 3 here, and Days 4 and 5 here.

Day Six:  Andrea's 25th birthday!!!!  We spend the morning wandering around the Marriott resort trying to find food, partially succeed when we eat at the beach bar for the restaurant Havana Blue, vow to never ever ever ever eat at the beach bar for the restaurant Havana Blue again (Andrea wrote the server a note, for God's sake, a note!) and walk not once but twice up over 100 stairs.  I don't care if it was at Sea Level, 100 stairs, sucks man!

The afternoon is much better.  We head out on a catamaran to Turtle Cove where Andrea snorkels for a bit, I chicken out on snorkeling for a bit, but still get to watch the turtles surface.  The trip back is slow and lazy; Andrea drinks a couple of Coors Lights and reluctantly agrees that it is in fact a great Lawn Mowing Beer.

Snorkeling.  The brave big dude took this pic from the boat

Lawn Mowing Beer = a beer that tastes wonderful after strenuous activity.  One you can drink down in a few swallows if you choose to.  IPAs are unequivocally NOT Lawn Mowing Beers

Also, Andrea might or might not have gotten a tattoo.

A quick birthday drink.  You thought it would be a picture of her tattoo, didn't you?

We have reservations at the real Havana Blue restaurant, home of one of my top five ever best meals, but Andrea chooses to forgo 5 star cuisine for...

Cheeseburgers.

Off we go to Margaritaville where we sit on the patio and are given dinner menus.  The ones that don't have cheeseburgers on them.  Come to find out that they stop serving cheeseburgers at 6:00!!!!!   The humanity!

Fortunately, it is 5:55, and the hostess rushes off to find our server so we can get our order in before the clock strikes 6.

Island Time is slower than regular time.  I've tried to describe it, but it you've not lived it it is tough to understand.  Rules are rules though.  If there are no more cheeseburgers after 6, you're not getting one.  I've never seen a server move like that on the VIs, or, really any island.  She hustled to get our order in, and the cheeseburgers were once again delicious.

For Andrea's birthday present, I ruined reggae for her.  It wasn't intentional, I swear.  But after suffering through several "hits" redone reggae style, I pointed out that any song can be turned into a reggae song.  I've included a couple of extreme examples at the end of the post; if you're sensitive though I suggest skipping it.  If however you have a sense of humor you should totally check it out.

Day Seven:  It is time for us to go back to the Real World.  Fortunately, we have one more night of vacation before we have to go home, but the 6 lane interstate of Fort Lauderdale is a bit of a shock after Island Life.

Before we go though, we have one last stop to make.

For cheeseburgers.

Off we go to Margaritaville where we sit in the bar and hang out with the World's Best Bartender, Lindsay.  I have yet another cheeseburger and decide that I'm kinda tired of them.

We hang out for awhile and head to the airport, where I am suddenly stricken with a heavy, foreboding sense of deja vu.

Perplexingly, to leave the American Virgin Islands, you have to go through customs.  You don't have to do so to get into the American Virgin Islands, only to leave the American Virgin Islands.  I'd forgotten this, perhaps because the last time we'd left we'd spent hours trying to get through an immense, sloth-like line in sweltering heat packed together like livestock headed for slaughter.

A cold sweat breaks out across my brow as we enter the double doors for immigration.  I let out a massive sigh and walk in to view my fate.

Which involves two parties in front of us, a Customs Officer that can best be described as disinterested, a security line that had no wait, air conditioning, and a terminal that actually felt a little comfortable.

Andrea, most excellent wife that she is, has reserved us exit row seats for the trip back.  For the record, Spirit exit row seats have decent leg room, but ZERO lateral movement.  I'm fat, I get it, but these seats were tight for Andrea even.  For me it was a bit like being in a vending machine.

We get back to Fort Lauderdale, try to get an Uber, have a driver actually tell us that he is too far away and to reject him, try to get another Uber who has zero idea of airport rules, but eventually finds us, and head to our hotel for the night.

The Margaritaville Hotel and Resort.

Stepped on a pop top

We head to the Margaritaville restaurant where I vow not to get a cheeseburger.  I don't, opting instead for a most decent mac and cheese with shrimp served by the most hyperactive server I have ever seen.

Jeremy- Pearl Jam
I Ran- A Flock of Seagulls
Wish You Were Here- Pink Floyd
Pumped Up Kicks- Foster The People
Stuck In The Middle- Steeler's Wheel

This is a partial list of songs that no one ever wants to hear a musician play in a bar on an acoustic guitar.  It is also a partial list of songs that a musician played in the bar on an acoustic guitar at the Margaritaville restaurant on a Monday in February.

I ran into the dude before his set in the Men's Room.  He had dreads and wore Chuck Taylors.  Of course he did. If someone ever shoots up the bar at the Margaritaville restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, call me.  I have a prime suspect for you to look at.

Day Seven ends with the best night sleep we got the entire trip.

Island Time is different.  It is looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing your scorched shoulders, your tired eyes, your scruffy, graying beard and bleached goatee, your skin bitten to hell by mosquitoes and thinking that you've not looked this good in awhile.  






A Totally Horrible Reggae Song, by Chris Fowler

Last Caress (sung to the tune of Three Little Birds, originally by The Misfits)

Sayin' I've got...
Someting ta say
Sayin' I killed...
Your baby today

Sayin' it doesn't...
Matter much to me
As long...
As its dead

On Island Time, Part Three

In February 2017, we traveled from Denver to Saint Thomas for a much needed and well deserved vacation.  Facebook has been thoroughly saturated with photos chronicling the beauty, joy, and fun we had.   This is an alternate look at our time on the island- the smelly, the wet, the creepy, the funny, the bizarre, broken into several parts.

Days 0.5 and 1 can be found here, Days 2 and 3 here.

Day Four- After a conservative estimate of 96 hours since my last shower, I hop in and lather up. What should be a truly glorious occasion is tempered by two things.  First, I remain unconvinced that any temporary repairs have been tested, and as a Project Manager on an App Dev project I am fully in the camp that sufficient QA is critical to success.  Second, despite repeated sunscreen applications I have managed to scorch my shoulders and upper chest in a fascinating zebra stripe pattern that while mostly not painful is nonetheless a bit sensitive.  That said, I am clean for the first time in days, and ready to face the day.

Which kicks off about 30 minutes later with a visit from the local Property Manager informing us that there is in fact still a leak. This time, he goes with the silicone the living shit out of the the entire shower pan and hope for the best approach.  We leave shortly thereafter to escape the fumes of curing silicone applied atop a soaking wet shower pan and hope for the best.

We head to Mountain Top; which at 1500 feet above sea level is the highest point of the island and boasts the best banana daiquiri in the world, or something.  It is a twisting, turning trip up the hill (it's not a mountain, St. Thomas, sorry to disappoint), but we make it up with nary an issue.  Andrea's first response upon seeing the sweeping views from the observation deck?  "Oh.  This isn't where I thought we were going."  Now, there are a number of responses to this, chiefly something akin to, "um, how many places like this are there here", but I went with the more casual, "oh really?"  Come to find out there is another spot along the bay area that has cable cars that take you to the top of another, lesser hill, which is where she thought we were going.  That said, we dutifully drank a shared banana daiquiri (it was OK I guess, but nothing that I felt like made it The Best), looked around a bit, took a few pics, and headed out.

Straight into a torrential rain shower that shook our driver Andrea pretty good by the time we made it down the "mountain".

A quick stop at a bar for some liquid courage and tepid canned nachos, and we were off to Water Island, the last American Virgin Island that we had not visited via a ferry.   I talk Andrea out of renting a golf cart for the absurd price of $50 and we instead take a shuttle to the beach and bar.

We get off, look around, say, "yep" followed immediately by, "the next ferry leaves in an hour, right"? We go to the bar for a drink and wait patiently for the opportunity to go back.

There's nothing wrong with Water Island, to be clear. It's definitely not my scene though. The beach is about the size of what you'd see on a resort, with a ton of boats parked close in.  The bar is a bar. You go there once, you'll be there twice.  On the way back, someone passed a flower down to the end of the ferry where Andrea sat.  Something about everyone having to touch it and then tossing the flower into the water signifying that we'd return to the island one day.  Andrea, in a fit of brilliance, passed the flower along to the guy next to her so that he'd toss it in, spoiling the ceremony, but also assuring that we'd not feel obligated to go back to Water Island.

Best Thing about Water Island...

Lunch had been on the docket for Water Island, a task that had gone unfulfilled, and while great quantities of Corona were preventing the onset of Hangry, it was nonetheless imminent.

So off we went to Margaritaville, if nothing else to confirm that they do in fact sell cheeseburgers,

Not only to they sell cheeseburgers, they sell Painkillers.  Strong ones.  Very very strong ones.  We met the most awesome bartender Lindsay, Andrea enjoyed two Painkillers and the BEST CHEESEBURGER SHE EVER ATE (a sentiment that I am sure had nothing whatsoever to do with drinking two Painkillers), and a great time was had by all.

They do exist!

All in all, a great day.  I got clean, Andrea got Painkillers, and Cheeseburgers were enjoyed by all.

Day Five-  I think we were feeling a bit of fatigue (and possibly some slight hangovers by certain members of our party)  We headed out to the Ritz, which has two sides- the Rental and the Resort side.  We started at the Rental side, enjoying some hair of the dog with a great bartender and felt pretty chill.

The Resort side had none of the vibe and mild crankiness set in.  We departed and headed to Secret Cove, which was crowded and had less of a vibe than the Resort.

A brief aside.  For Christmas, I bought (amongst other items) Andrea two Lego Angry Kitty characters- one full on Angry, the other kinda Sad.  I'm not sure why Happy Kitty didn't make it; I might have saved myself some trouble had she been bought as well.  We've joked since that they are sort of semaphore flags for Andrea- if Angry Kitty is on the counter, look out.

At Secret Cove, even though we were literally thousands of miles away, I have little doubt that Angry Kitty levitated out of the bowl she normally sits in and placed herself firmly on the counter.  I took one look at Andrea, said, "let's pack it up" and off we went to Sapphire Beach again.

I need to work on my flexibility evidently.

Spiccoli was still there, but this time he was joined by Charles Manson who I first observed looking waaaaaayyyyy too closely at our backpack, then saw one of the resort staff offer a hamburger, then watched another guest give a beer.  He was a bit creepy, but also sad, a weird combination of Manson:

The Caddie from Happy Gilmore:

And Alan:

Charlie, as he shall henceforth be known, was probably homeless, but was well taken care of by the folks on the Beach, and that in the end was pretty cool.

Angry Kitty made it back off the counter, Charlie left us alone, and all was well in the universe once again as we wiled away the afternoon floating in the waves.

Island Time is different.  It's feeling the vibe of a beach in your soul, searching, seeking, until you feel just the right resonation and all is right in the world.